Eli Woods obituary

Eli Woods, who has died aged 91, was one of the last links to the great era of twice-nightly British variety theatre. A stooped and gangling figure with a long, lugubrious face and permanently gaping mouth, clad in flapping trousers, too-tight jacket and deerstalker hat, he had a stammer which he exaggerated to tremendous comic effect. Woods spent his early career as a stooge for his uncle, Jimmy James, the innovative music-hall comedian who eschewed traditional jokes in favour of elaborate and surreal flights of fancy and was revered in the business as "the comedian's comedian".

James, too unusual and often unpredictable to reach the highest pinnacle of stardom, but cherished by discerning audiences as well as fellow pros, mostly improvised around two or three basic sketches, supported by a pair of grotesque individuals – the belligerent Hutton Conyers, who always arrived on stage shouting "Are you putting it around that I'm barmy?" and the gormless Bretton Woods, who got the biggest laughs with his wonderfully timed, stuttering interpolations. The role of Bretton Woods was taken by Eli Woods; Conyers was often played by James's son (and Woods's cousin), Jim Casey, and later by Roy Castle.

Their best-known sketch was In the Box, almost as famous in its day as Monty Python's Dead Parrot. James and Woods would be chatting inconsequentially when Conyers entered carrying a shoebox in which he claimed he kept two man-eating lions (James: "I thought I heard a rustling").

James asks Woods to get some coffees while he engages Conyers pending the arrival of medical help. Conyers informs them that he also has a giraffe.

James: "Where do you keep it?"

Conyers: "In the box."

James (to Woods): "Get on the phone. I'll keep him talking till they come."

Conyers: "Are you telling him about the giraffe?"

James: "No, I'll tell him. He's got a giraffe in that box."

Woods: "Is it black or white?"

James: "I'll ask him. He wants to know if the giraffe is black or white?"

Woods: "No, the coffee I mean."

Conyers says he also owns an elephant.

James: "Is it male or female?"

Conyers: "No, an elephant."

James: "I don't suppose it makes any difference to you whether it's male or female."

Woods: "It wouldn't make any difference to anyone but another elephant."

James: "I shall have to stop you going to those youth clubs."

The sinister edge that underpinned the humour gave the sketch its bite; it survived the death of James in 1965, and was still being presented (notably in a Royal Variety Performance in 1982) up to 30 years later, with Jim Casey taking his father's role, various star comedians as Conyers, and Woods in the part he had by then played for more than four decades.

Woods was born John Casey in Stockton-on-Tees, the son of John, a steelworker, and Florence, and was always known offstage as Jack or Jackie. He attended St Bede's school and had early theatrical ambitions, accepting that his stammer would restrict him to comedy.

Uncle Jimmy had been working mostly as a solo act. By the late 1940s, however, he had devised several routines that required stooges, and one night in 1948, when the regular performer couldn't make it to the Preston Hippodrome, his nephew was drafted in to play Bretton Woods (named, with typical James idiosyncrasy, after the 1944 international financial conference). A few months later they were starring with Max Miller at the London Palladium, and in 1953 they appeared in the Royal Variety Performance. Jack, now known professionally as Eli Woods, also acted in two films with James, Over the Garden Wall (1950) and Those People Next Door (1953).

After the great comedian's death, Woods remained popular in panto, on television and in clubs, where he showed he shared his uncle's gift for ad-libbing. Asked if he had a snappy comeback for hecklers, he said: "Yes, so long as they'll w-w-w-wait for it."

Les Dawson, a close friend, often used Woods in TV shows and he also worked with Kenny Everett and Des O'Connor. During the late 1970s and early 80s, he featured in two BBC radio series written by Eddie Braben: The Show With Ten Legs and The Show with No Name. On television, he was in Last of the Summer Wine occasionally between 1988 and 2002 and appeared in programmes including Heartbeat, You Rang M'Lord, Little Dorrit and Super Gran. He also had a showy part in the film A Private Function (1984). He continued taking In the Box on tour in old-time music-hall shows with Jim Casey through the 1990s. Casey died in 2011.

Woods, who lived in Stockton all his life, retired about 10 years ago.

He is survived by his second wife, Pamela, a former dancer, five children, Giselle, Simon, Neil, Mark and Nicola, six grandchildren and one great-grandson.